It was supposed to be a quick trip. We were just going to go up Rock Creek, get two trees, take a picture, make a snow angel maybe, then go home before the sun sets. With brand new tires, the sun overhead, plenty of hot coffee, and two bow saws, this Friday the 13th was looking to be just a normal day.
Heading up Rock Creek with the tree permit in the front window, we, two law-abiding citizens and a border collie, quickly found the road to be too icy. After a couple attempts to clear a hill, we decided it was a Sign and went to find lower elevation conifers.
The volcanic tuff of Bishop Rock’s praying hands beckoned us. There was sure to be plenty of trees hidden back there. We turned in and the snow was packed down on the road. People had been here before us.
Here was that Sign realized.
But I may have sent ’er a little too hard. As the snow got deeper, we looked around and thought we’d better not go any further to avoid getting stuck. That, dear readers, is exactly where we got stuck.
I’ll admit, my truck is not fully designed for these kinds of conditions and I wasn’t 100 percent prepared to get unstuck, but conditions weren’t that bad and the vehicle has been through much worse.
Overconfidence is a killer.
Not far from cell service and with plenty of sunlight, survival was a phone call away the entire time. Yet, as we dug ourselves deeper, I thought of the Franklin expedition. I thought of how the crews of the Terror and the Erebus must have felt when they lodged their ships into arctic sea ice.
They were never found. Well, mostly.
After about an hour of trying, or to back up far enough to get traction, we called it quits and went out for the first tree. The snow was deep and the forest was dense. With so much beetle kill in many of the San Juans’ forests, it was welcome to be among such a healthy, abundant pine grove.
We found a tree and dragged it back to the truck with a refreshed attitude to get the thing unstuck.
While loading the tree, I heard the sound of tires on snow. A truck approached. Is it someone else out to get a tree?
No, it was local Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer Tyler Cerny.
He said he hadn’t been down this road in a while and thought he needed to check it out. If he hadn’t had that thought, he wouldn’t have found us.
Over the next hour and a half, we moved the truck back only about 600 feet. There was a spot to turn around about 1000 feet away. A curve in the road proved to be a physics challenge. Cerny ended up losing power steering. Metal cracked and popped, expensive noises erupted from underneath both vehicles. The tires just spun.
Finally, he left us with a radio and drove to cell service where he was able to call a tow truck. We thanked him for his help and he went back to his day.
While we waited for a tow, we found the second tree and a great view of the mountains.
Despite a hairy situation, neither of us freaked out. It serves as a reminder of no matter how far up the creek you are, just take a deep breath and remain calm. A lack of oxygen makes for poor decision making.
Evan Dick and his two sons from Ace Towing showed up just after three in the afternoon in a jeep made for this kind of situation.
After being winched to a spot we could finally turn around, there was only one thing to do: gun it.
From there, it was bumpy, but smooth sailing the whole way back to the main road. From the time the tow arrived to when we were back to the road, was less than 15 minutes.
It was a mission accomplished on all fronts and it makes for an interesting tale. Oh, and the border collie was given more than enough treats during the whole ordeal. He was a good moral support.